


Employment

by nicedracula



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:14:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25771195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicedracula/pseuds/nicedracula
Summary: Laurel takes a caravan guard job.
Kudos: 6





	Employment

**Author's Note:**

> Some stuff about my raider character I made for the Nuka World DLC. He's not the sole survivor, but he has Dogmeat because it's the only thing he's felt any love for.

Laurel did not care much for caravan guard jobs, but they paid decently and were honest work. He did not enjoy trekking across the Commonwealth in the company of strangers, moving at the pace of a brahmin carrying far too much cargo on its back. He did, however, enjoy being paid. And sometimes, if he was silver-tongued enough, and the traders stupid enough, he could manage to increase his earnings even more. His current employer, a trader by a name he could not be bothered to remember, did not entertain this, and even threatened to lower his pay if he insisted any further.

Perhaps he had already pushed his luck by insisting that Dogmeat had to accompany them. He convinced his employer that he was a very capable attack dog, and would not be a nuisance or burden during the long walk ahead. Additionally, Dogmeat was perfectly happy never seeing a single cap for his very diligent work. This seemed like more than enough to convince the employer of his essentialness. 

Caravan guards were either stone silent, keeping to their own business, or they insisted on talking as much as possible, relaying their life stories and asking others to do the same. Laurel prefered the former. Unfortunately, out of the three other guards employed alongside him, one happened to be that very conversational type.

The man, whose name was Marvin, because Laurel had been involuntarily subjected to having the name drilled into his mind, droned on for a majority of the walk from Goodneighbor to Tenpines Bluff. He belabored how he used to be a farmer in some small settlement, before raiders came and took everything they had. Now Marvin worked as a caravan guard because before long, his small family dwindled down until he was the only one left standing, and he saw very little use in maintaining the farm on his lonesome. 

"What's your story, huh?" Marvin asked Laurel after asking the same question to the other two guards, who gave their own curt, short responses. "You been doing this long?"

"I've been a caravan guard every since I was a small child," Laurel said. "I've known nothing else than the thrill of walking around the Commonwealth with a bunch of strangers who couldn't mind their own damn business."

Marvin nodded thoughtfully. "Tough circumstances for a kid to grow up in."

"That's the wasteland for you," Laurel said dryly.

Soon after this, their employer threatened to dock Marvin's pay if he kept talking so much, due to potentially attracting unwanted attention down the road. The man did not speak another word.

Walking in silence, Laurel was almost able to forget that he was in the company of other people, with only Dogmeat trotting loyally at his side, the only sound made being the dog's panting and his claws dragging slightly on the asphalt road. He did not mind the walk itself; it felt good when they made it out of the rotting recesses of former Boston, the road now lined by trees instead of decrepit buildings. He observed the yellows and greens and reds of their leaves, and realized that come a few jobs down the line, winter would begin to take hold of the Commonwealth. The only good thing he observed about winter was that when the roads get more treacherous, the pay for jobs that ask to go out in the frigid wasteland goes up.

A loud crack—the unmistakable sound of gunfire—jolted Laurel out of his daze. He ducked behind the cover of the nearest Corvega, Dogmeat whimpering as he followed close behind, and peered through its broken windows in search for their attacker. He could spot raiders hidden behind trees across the road, at least three of them in his sight. The other caravan guards hid behind the other vehicles as well, firing away. 

"Raiders!" one of the guards shouted.

A loud bang sounded from behind him, and Laurel looked to his right to see Marvin slumped limply against the side of a nearby vehicle, eyes rolled back in his head, cheek resting grossly against the blood smattered surface. 

Laurel glanced behind himself to see the aissalent, a raider taking cover behind a tree, his sights now set on him.

Laurel narrowly ducked in time before the next bullet rang out, but felt it graze against his arm, which he had raised above his head. He aimed his pistol at his side and shot back at the raider. He fire back twice, the first missed but the second bullet met with the raider's neck. He turned back to the battle happening just behind him, just in time to see the raiders put a final bullet in the last standing caravan guard. There were only two raiders left standing, and they did not take notice of Laurel crouching behind the car. He pulled his swatter—wrapped crudely in barbed-wire—from the makeshift holster on his back.

The next moments felt like a blur, as all his acts of violence usually did. Running on instinct and frustration alone, he lunged out from behind the car, swatter in hand, and slammed it into the back of one of the raider's skulls with a sickening thud. The other raider jumped and moved to take aim at Laurel, but was interrupted by Dogmeat, who bit down hard on the man's arm, diverting the rifle's aim downward. Laurel swung again, and felt another crunch as it made contact with the man's head. Dogmeat released his grip, and the raider staggered back a few steps before collapsing to the ground.

Laurel reeled the swatter back behind his head, then brought it down for additional insurance. Then again, just in case the man with the caved-in skull and was still alive.

He pulled the swatter from the raider's head, feeling an unpleasant tug as the barbed wire unhooked itself from flesh. He stood up straight and glanced around, wiping the sweat on his forehead with the back of his arm. He quickly realized that he was the last man standing, employer included.

"So much for honest work, eh, Dogmeat?" he asked.

The dog whined in response and tilted his head, although he did not seem to understand what Laurel was saying. He knelt beside the dog and scratched behind his ears, and asked Dogmeat 'who's a good boy?', which made Dogmeat smile and loll his tongue out the side of his mouth.

He picked through the belongings off of all his fallen companions to find that they had very little beyond what he had. He rifled through his employer's pocket to find no more than three hundred caps, not enough to pay the promised second half of every caravan guard's pay.

"Bastard."

Laurel arrived at Goodneighbor well after dusk, miserable the entire walk there. Dogmeat followed cheerfully at his heels, unbothered by all the commotion he had endured throughout the day. If there was one good thing about the town, it was that it knew what it was, and made no attempts to disguise it. It knew that it was tucked away in the underbelly of the city ruins, surrounded by raider encampments and feral ghouls, and it made no attempt to guise itself as any better. It reveled in sin and, despite having elected itself a mayor, in something resembling anarchy.

He made no stops before returning to the Third Rail, where he slumped into a seat at the bar, the one furthest from the only other man there. Everyone else sat at tables, basking in the dim glow of booze, music, and kindred spirits. Whitechapel Charlie polished cups idly, his mechanical arms moving with ease.

"Long time no see," the barkeep said.

Laurel grunted an irritated, inaudible response before sliding some caps in the robot's direction.

"Looking for some employment?" Whitechapel asked as he clunked a lukewarm beer in front of Laurel.

"If you've got anything worth my time," Laurel said. He took a swig, then made a dissatisfied expression at its taste and temperature. 

"I heard a rumor," Whitechapel began. "That there's a Gunner problem east of here, on the highway past ArcJet Systems, and someone's willing to pay to have it cleaned up. Kidnapping situation, something of the like. Seemed personal." Laurel did not say anything, but raised his chin up a bit, somewhat interested. "Bloke seemed pretty desperate. Said he was willing to pay every cap to his name, starting at three hundred."

"Not a lot of caps to his name, eh?"

" _Starting_ at."

"Anything else you can tell me about this employer?" he asked after taking another swig.

"Came in a couple of weeks ago, didn't look like the type to hang out in Goodneighbor. Looked more at home on a farm. Seemed a little frantic as well. My guess is that this place was his last resort, and no one anywhere else wants to help him." He put down the glass he had been polishing and moved on to the next. "Don't think anyone's taken an interest to the job yet, and no surprise. Who would walk all the way out there and tangle with the Gunners for three hundred caps?"

"Desperate men," Laurel said flatly.

"And are you a desperate man, Mr. Cross?"

Laurel tilted his head a bit to the side. "Eh, more or less."


End file.
